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INPRIMATU
José Luis Etxebarria 'Porru'
Death of the local police chief who proved that heroin was distributed by the Civil Guard in Arrasate
  • José Luis Etxebarria Porru was head of the Arrasate Municipal Police from 1982 to 2012 and showed that they carried the drug from the Intxaurrondo headquarters in Donostia and La Salve in Bilbao. He died on 20 November at age 65.
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José Luis Etxeberria Porru was born in Aretxabaleta, but spent his life in Mondragón. It was known, among other things, because in the 1980s he showed that the Civil Guard was the one who distributed heroin to the people, in a study commissioned by the mayor of the PNV of that time, José Antonio Ardanza. On Sunday, Porru dies at age 65, according to Goiena hedabideak.

In 1982 he served as Chief of the Municipal Police, in a 30-year period when a large number of young people were dying from drugs in Arrasate. Recently, the Municipal Police Headquarters received the Ardanza Order to investigate where heroin came to the people to find out who was circulating in drug trafficking. The Municipal Guard Agents dressed on the street followed the drug distribution vehicles and came to two places, according to Berria's 2015 interview: To the two headquarters of the Civil Guard, La Salve de Bilbao and Intxaurrondo de San Sebastián.

"We showed that they were bringing drugs from barracks to Mondragon, but the complaint stayed nowhere because there was not much interest in knowing that. It was disappointing," he explained. In fact, they went to court, but it wasn't enough to start an investigation, because most cars had fake license plates and it was "very obvious" that "there was no willingness to investigate."

In the 1980s he considered that the biggest problem of Arrasate was drugs, and he reaffirmed to Berria why it had a special impact in this country: "It is no coincidence that the Civil Guard chooses a people like Arrasate to distribute drugs: ETA leaders, renowned politicians, cooperatives... Both politically and socially and economically, Arrasate was a very strong people. He was chosen voluntarily."

The Elgoibarrés Justo Arriola published in 2017 the book At the feet of the horse, drug trafficking, heroin and counterinsurgency in Euskal Herria with the txalaparta, in which he collected the testimony of Porru, among others.